The Burning Man

by Christa Faust

  Kieran had never before seen a person in a coma— not in real life—and had always assumed that their eyes would be shut. There was something deeply unsettling about those dead, empty eyes.

  That’s when he noticed something weird going on along the edge of the thin white blanket covering the person in the bed. At first it was so subtle that he thought he might be imagining it. But when he looked closer, he saw that a six-inch section of the hem of the blanket was bunching up and smoothing out, then bunching up again. Almost as if it was being clutched in a small, invisible hand, and then released. Clutched and then released.

  The bunching of the blanket seemed to be perfectly timed to match the heavy, irregular breath of the person beneath. But if it was just the rising and falling of the person’s chest that was moving the blanket, why was it only bunching up on one side, and not the other?

  “Who the hell are you?” a female voice asked, startling Kieran so badly that he nearly dropped his package.

  He spun to face the voice and saw a girl with a dark buzzcut standing in the doorway that led into the bathroom. She was pretty in a hard kind of way, with wary dark eyes and a sarcastic mouth. She was dressed in a hospital gown, the top hanging wide open to display her pale, xylophone chest.

  “Man, you scared me,” he said, trying for friendly and non-threatening. He thought about trying to keep up the messenger pretense, but this wasn’t a staff member, so he decided to try a different approach. “I’m looking for Olivia Dunham. Do you know where she is?”

  “I might,” the girl responded. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m her boyfriend,” Kieran said, knowing it was a risk, but hoping his admission would gain the girl’s sympathy. “I’m really worried about her. Is she okay?”

  “Define okay,” the girl said. “Okay like me? Okay like Lisa Broccoli over there?”

  “Broccoli?” Kieran frowned.

  “As in she’s a vegetable, genius.” She rolled her eyes. “You’d better be smart, because you’re certainly not badass. In fact, you may be the lamest action hero of all time. Still, you get an A for effort, I guess. Got a cigarette?”

  “I don’t smoke,” Kieran said, frustration digging its nails into his gut. “Do you know where Olivia is, or don’t you?”

  “Sure I do,” the girl said. “She’s in the lab with Doctor Lansen. She’s his little favorite now. He’s prepping her right now for his ‘special treatment.’”

  The toxic, white-hot jealousy in her voice was so strong it could’ve stripped paint. It made Kieran sick to think of some weird doctor having his way with Olivia, but as his head spun to catch up with all of this new information, it also gave him an idea.

  “Then we need to stop him,” he said. “It sounds to me that you don’t much like Olivia. You must want her out of the picture—don’t you? Well, I want her out of here, too. We both want the same thing, so help me find her and I’ll take her away. You’ll never have to see her again.

  “Okay?”

  The girl squinted at him, skeptical.

  “Okay?” he repeated, his desperation building.

  “How did you get in?” she asked.

  “I stole a key card.”

  “D level?”

  “Yes.” What was she getting at?

  She looked him up and down like she was sizing up a racehorse.

  “Okay, listen,” she said. “At the end of the hall is the lounge, and a set of double doors. I’m going to go set off the Lindsey bomb in the lounge, and when all the orderlies come rushing in to handle it, we’ll slip out through those doors.”

  “What’s a Lindsey bomb?”

  “Trust me, okay,” she said. “Just be ready to make a break for those doors. They’ll let you out into the elevator area, and on the opposite side will be the door to the lab wing. Locked of course, but you have the key. Doctor Lansen’s lab is the second door on the left.”

  Kieran didn’t exactly trust this strange, intense girl, but he also didn’t have a better plan.

  45

  Doctor Lansen watched nervously as the nurse wheeled Olivia into the lab.

  He felt like a man on a first date. He’d already prepped and scrubbed in for the procedure, but kept finding himself raising an involuntary gloved hand to smooth back his cap-covered hair, and being forced to stop himself at the last minute.

  The nurse transferred Olivia to the operating table and removed her underwear before strapping her legs into a pair of metal stirrups. Doctor Lansen watched anxiously as she started an intravenous drip in the crook of Olivia’s good arm. While it would allow the insemination process to proceed without protest or undue distress on the part of the subject, general anesthesia was out of the question. The Cortexiphan-enhanced part of the brain often remained active even while the subject was unconscious.

  Conversely, the psychic suppression agent required to calm any neuroquakes either counteracted the standard anesthetics, or caused potentially dangerous cardiac arrhythmia when combined with other, more uncommon formulations.

  The trickiest part of the process would come when the psychic suppression agent wore off. He’d learned the hard way—with previous subjects—that a kind of involuntary rebound effect occurred sometime between six and twelve hours after the initial dose was administered. Clustered neuroquakes of varying severity would hit like an internal storm and, depending on the particular Cortexiphan-induced abilities of the subject in question, a wide spectrum of potentially catastrophic phenomena could occur.

  Given Olivia’s predilection for electrical and pyrokinetic disturbances, he had prepared a special recovery room for her in the lower ward, fully insulated in non-conductive, non-flammable material and equipped with a lightning rod to attract and safely ground any power surges. She and the unique zygote she would soon be carrying were too far precious for him to take any chances.

  “That will be all for now, Helen,” he said to the nurse. “Thank you.”

  The nurse gave a curt nod and left the room. He was alone with Olivia.

  46

  The hall outside was empty. The skinny girl with the buzzcut went first, padding down the hallway in her textured slipper-socks. Kieran followed close behind.

  When they reached the open archway, the room beyond was revealed. A dull, blandly decorated dentist’s-waiting-room kind of area with two uncomfortable-looking, easy-to-clean vinyl couches and two bolted-down tables with ugly, dated chairs.

  A scattered game of checkers lay ignored on one table. A few sad, dog-eared fashion magazines on the other. A sturdy television was bolted to the wall, currently showing an episode of Friends. On the far side there was another open doorway that looked like it led into a nurses station.

  There was a single occupant in the room, a tiny Hispanic girl with a sad, heart-shaped face and thick, chapped lips. She seemed shy and child-like in her demeanor, although the curvy body beneath her hospital gown was much more grown up. Her thick, curly hair was held back with a pink-and-red scrunchie that matched the plush bunny in her arms.

  “That’s Lindsey,” the skinny girl whispered to Kieran as she slunk over to the archway that led into the lounge. “Whenever her dad, well, you know... Her mom would scrub her with bleach and a wire brush.” As he let that horrifying concept sink in, she added, “You’d better stay back.”

  Kieran did as he was told, adrenalin racing through his veins. He had no idea what to expect. All he could do was keep his eye on the big double doors, and be ready to bolt through them as soon as he had a chance.

  “Lindsey’s dirty!” the skinny girl called into the lounge. “DIRTY!”

  It was hard to see exactly what happened next, but there was a furious, almost inhuman wail and a burst of fluffy white stuffing like the aftermath of a pillow fight.

  “I’m not!” Lindsey wailed. “I’M NOT DIRTY!”

  An ugly chair came flying out into the hallway, followed by the sound of shattering glass. As the girl had predicted, a pack of orderlies came rushing throug
h the double doors, running for the lounge, while nurses poured out of the nurses’ station like angry hornets.

  Mad chaos, flailing limbs, and flying furniture filled the lounge and the skinny girl just smirked and cocked her chin toward their destination.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  * * *

  Annie led Olivia’s white knight out through the airlock and over to the entrance to the lab wing.

  “Gimme that key,” she said.

  “I got it,” the knight said with a suspicious squint.

  Maybe he wasn’t so dumb after all.

  She looked back over her shoulder toward the ward as the knight slipped the pilfered card through the lock. The door clicked open, and he motioned for her to come with him.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  She slipped through, and then paused with one hand on the door to Doctor Lansen’s office.

  “Give me sixty seconds,” she said. “And then go through that door and get your girl.”

  He nodded, so earnest and clueless. He seemed like a sweet guy, but honestly, if this was Olivia’s hero, she’d better hope for a miracle.

  Annie slipped into Doctor Lansen’s office and pulled the door closed behind her. His warm, bookish smell made her feel a little dizzy, and she found herself tempted to roll around in his possessions like a cat. But she had more important things to do. Like get rid of that Olivia, once and for all.

  As soon as Doctor Lansen saw how far she was willing to go for him, he’d have to realize that she was the one and only subject he would ever need. That they were meant to be together... forever.

  She counted another handful of heartbeats and then smiled. An excited giggle welled up as she stretched her arms up over her head. Going up on her toes, she reached her fingers toward the highest shelf, and tipped several books down until they fell with a loud, rustling thump.

  * * *

  “What is this?” Olivia demanded, craning her neck around the lab. Her voice was a little slushy, a side effect of the psychic inhibitor. “What are you doing to me, you pervert?”

  “Nothing perverse, I assure you,” he replied as he prepped the dosage of the genetic plasticity serum. “I’m a scientist.”

  “Then why are my underpants off?” she asked. She struggled weakly against her bindings.

  “Please try to remain calm,” he said. “The procedure should be over in approximately twenty minutes.”

  “Procedure?” She twisted her head, and her eyes were wide. “What procedure?”

  It was times like this when he really wished his research could be conducted using animal models. He was already keyed up, and the last thing he needed was a lot of irrelevant chit-chat to distract him from the process. There was so much riding on the outcome. If it failed, then all of his work up to this point would be wasted.

  He took a deep breath and steadied his hands, then gripped the IV bag and injected the serum through the port. The dark, viscous, and intensely concentrated serum swirled into the lactated Ringer’s solution, and started sending tendrils down the tube.

  Toward Olivia’s arm.

  From somewhere he heard a stifled giggle, and then a crash coming from inside his office.

  What the hell...? No one was allowed in there—not when he wasn’t present. There were things no one else should ever see.

  But he couldn’t interrupt the procedure—not at this critical juncture. So he stepped over to the door and cocked his head, then used his elbow to hit the panic button, keeping his sterile hands up and away from his body.

  No response.

  He hit the button again, and then stalked over to the door to the hallway, seething. He expected to hear the sound of running orderlies, or security guards coming to deal with whatever was happening in his office. But there was nothing.

  He didn’t want to touch the knob, so he just banged on the door with his knee. He miscalculated, and a shot of pain ran up his leg, causing him to curse under his breath.

  “Security?” he called. “Hello? Does anybody besides me actually work in this place? I’m scrubbed in here!”

  More thumps and giggles from his office.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said, stripping off his gloves and throwing them way too hard at the flip-top trash can. One went in, but the other bounced out and landed on the floor near his feet.

  Jerking open the door, he stormed into his office, furious at this ill-timed interruption. He wasn’t all that surprised to find Annie there, sitting cross-legged on his desk in a pile of books.

  47

  Her head clearing a bit, Olivia systematically tested and retested the straps that held her down. She tried repeatedly to close her legs, but found that it was impossible.

  There was less than a fraction of an inch of wiggle room in every direction. She’d never felt so infuriatingly helpless, but the thick, narcotic strangeness from the drug she’d been given made her anger feel slippery and difficult to grasp. The thick, inky substance that Doctor Lansen had injected into her IV bag was working its way down the clear coil of tubing toward the needle in her arm.

  She had no idea what it was but she knew she didn’t want it in her body.

  When she heard the door open behind her she felt a spike of nausea, and hollow dread.

  “Liv?”

  It was Kieran. He was wearing an ill-fitting, bright red jacket. The sight of him made it feel like someone was squeezing her heart inside her chest.

  He ran to stand next to her.

  “Get...” Her throat felt raspy and dry, her voice unwieldy. “Get this needle out of my arm. Quick...”

  He looked up at the tube, frowning. The dark liquid was less than an inch from the butterfly needle tenting the skin of her inner arm.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “Now!” Olivia hissed. “Hurry...”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, wincing a little as he ripped the tube from the coupler that connected it to the needle.

  It hurt like hell, causing the needle to twist beneath her skin. Once the tube was disconnected, blood started shooting out of her arm in a thin stream, while a mix of saline and that black chemical compound from the IV bag sprayed all over the floor.

  “Whoa!” he said. “Here, let me just...”

  He peeled off the white medical tape holding the needle down and pulled it out of her vein. Blood continued to trickle from the puncture in her skin, but at a much slower rate.

  Then he swiftly unbuckled the straps that held her down, pulling her up and into his arms.

  “Jesus, Liv,” he said, crushing her in a breathless embrace and then taking her face between his hands. “Are you okay? What the hell is going on here?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “They gave me some kind of drug. I think Doctor Lansen was trying to test some sort of weird serum on me.” She shuddered, and pressed her face into his neck, smelling his safe, familiar, clean-laundry smell as if it were all she had to hold on to.

  “Kieran, get me out of here.”

  “See, I told you,” Annie’s voice spoke from the doorway. “She brought that boy here because she doesn’t want to be with you. She doesn’t love you like I do.”

  Doctor Lansen pushed her aside roughly and came charging through the door.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked Kieran.

  Annie caught up and clung to Doctor Lansen’s arm, staring up at him.

  “Please,” she said. “Listen to me.”

  He ripped his arm out of her grip and shoved her back.

  “Get away from me, you stupid girl,” he said. Then he turned back to Kieran. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “But,” Annie said, regaining her balance, “I love you.” Oblivious to Olivia and Kieran, she threw her arms around Doctor Lansen, trying to kiss him. He backed up into a table full of lab glassware that tumbled to the ground and shattered around their feet while the two of them struggled.

  “Let’s go!” Kieran said, gripping Olivia’s arm and
pulling her toward the open doorway that led to Doctor Lansen’s office.

  “God dammit!” Lansen said, hauling off and letting Annie have it in the face.

  She crumpled into a sobbing heap as Kieran shoved Olivia through the door ahead of him. From behind them in the lab, her sobs became a wail, and they heard a disturbing series of crashes. Suddenly Lansen was crying out in pain, the sound growing until it overwhelmed Annie’s wail, but Olivia didn’t look back to see what was happening.

  * * *

  Once they were inside Lansen’s office, Kieran slammed the door, and then put his shoulder to the bookcase beside them, motioning for Olivia to help him. Together they were able to shove it in front of the entrance to the lab.

  But once they’d moved the one bookcase, it revealed the edge of a sliding panel, set into the wall.

  “Is that a door?” Kieran asked.

  “I have no idea,” Olivia said. “I never noticed it before.”

  He pried the panel open, and behind it was a dark elevator shaft. Meanwhile, Olivia could hear pounding on the door to the lab, and thundering footsteps in the hallway. She grabbed a steel paperweight from the desk, ran over to the entrance to the hallway, and used the paperweight to smash the keypad. She hoped that would seize up the electronic lock.

  Now the only way out of Doctor Lansen’s office was that dubious elevator shaft.

  Olivia went over to stand beside Kieran, and together they peered into the shaft. She could barely make out the roof of an elevator car, all the way at the bottom. Harsh light leaked through a ventilation grate. To the left of the door, there was a rickety metal maintenance ladder and some kind of panel.

  “Think you can climb down that ladder with your broken arm?” Kieran asked.

  “I don’t exactly have a choice, do I,” Olivia replied.

  “Let me go first,” he suggested. “I think I can disable the elevator from that panel there.” He cast an anxious glance at the shuddering bookshelf that was blocking the lab door. “We don’t want the car coming up under us, and then squashing us against the top of the shaft.”